


So Many Stars Tonight

by LookIntoMyTelescope



Category: Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: F/F, Getting Rained out, Implied Sexual Content, Library Gays, Post-Canon, Rain, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookIntoMyTelescope/pseuds/LookIntoMyTelescope
Summary: “There’s actually a national forest a few dozen miles south, it’s a ‘designated dark zone’ and it has a good view of the meteor shower. Did you want to go with me?”Gretchen was on autopilot while researching before she realized she had just asked Cady Heron to go with her on a road trip to look at stars, just the two of them.Some Grady Stargazing with a lil spice
Relationships: Cady Heron/Gretchen Wieners
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	So Many Stars Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selah (thanks for the bootlegs)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Selah+%28thanks+for+the+bootlegs%29).



Gretchen and Cady had grown pretty distant after the Spring Fling. Gretchen wasn’t ever sure if Cady avoided her on purpose, but knew it was her own fault if Cady was. Gretchen couldn’t look at her the same ever since that night. That night when Cady, clad only in last season’s skinny jeans and a Mathletes letterman jacket, ripped apart a plastic tiara and changed the dynamic of their class forever. She was a star, bright and radiant with confidence, and Gretchen couldn’t tear her eyes away. From then on, Cady was different. She wasn’t some foreign loser to be pitied and groomed into a proper teenage girl, and she wasn’t some manipulative strawberry blonde Regina clone who pretended like she cared. She had grown into a new Cady. One who wanted to make her high school social scene better, no matter what it cost her. Someone who led people, not for the fun or the control of it all, but because she wanted everyone to succeed.

And despite not seeing her much, Gretchen fell hopelessly infatuated with this new Cady.

After school ended for the summer, Cady and Gretchen almost never saw each other. Cady had a summer full of visiting relatives up in Indiana and endless sleepovers with Janis and Damien, not to mention Mathlete camp at the beginning of the school year. Gretchen had no particular plans, but usually got dragged by either Karen or Regina to another college party or a sleepover. During a surprisingly free week in late July, Gretchen decided to stop by the Northshore Library. She knew she was going into AP Literature for her senior year, and she needed to knock out some books from the reading list. 

Gretchen came into the library through a large set of glass doors, and to her surprise, a familiarly sunny voice greeting her. She stopped dead.

“Hello! Welcome in- Gretch?” Cady was smiling brightly, her eyebrows knit together in adorable confusion. Anxiety welled up in the pit of Gretchen’s stomach.

“Hi, Cady. I had no idea that you- that you worked here.”

Cady stood up from her spot behind the front desk, stretching her back out.

“Ahh- yeah, my dad went to school with the head librarian here, and I got to be a library assistant for the summer. It’s always pretty slow, but I get to read when I’m not sorting books or talking about the summer reading program, so it’s pretty cool.”

Gretchen was completely lost in Cady’s bubbly little speech, that she completely forgot to reply, and just looked lost.

“...Did you need any help looking for a book or a movie?”

“Oh! Yes. I’m going to be in AP Literature next year and I want to read some classics, get ahead of the curve, y’know?” Gretchen babbled. Cady stood there, her eyebrows furrowed in thought as she looked around at the sections behind them. Before Gretchen could say another word, Cady grabbed her by the hand, leading a blushing Gretchen through the fiction section until they got to an aisle labeled  _ Classics _ .

“Okay, so we have plays and novels. Any specific genre, any time period you want to read?”

Gretchen shrugged.

“Would you recommend anything?” She asked, trying to remember if Cady was actually interested in literature. Cady grimaced, her smile fully freezing over on her face.

“Ahh, so I’m more of a math person than a literature person, so I mostly just read plays and books that I read when I was a kid. So let’s see…”

Cady started browsing the section, considering between the dusty, obviously well-worn copies of books like  _ Moby-Dick  _ and  _ Les Miserables  _ and plays like  _ A Raisin In The Sun  _ and  _ Hamlet _ .

After a few minutes of Cady looking around, Gretchen could feel that anxiety rise into her throat.

“You really don’t have to find a book for me if you don’t want to, I’m sorry-”

Cady’s eyes widened as she took a book from the shelf. It was relatively new, at least compared to the other books, with a red filtered photo of a Pilgrim girl levitating.

“Found it! The Crucible. Damien did a one-man reading of it and I thought he was brilliant, and the story’s kind of relevant to what happened to us, right? So this girl starts a rumor to get attention from a guy and it spirals out of control and people die, so-”

“Basically what happened to us, but people stay dead in this, right? They don’t die for fifteen seconds, then come back to life?”

Cady snorted.

“Please. If a bus can’t kill her, I seriously doubt anything can.” She smiled.

Gretchen laughed harder than what was acceptable for being in a library or joking about one of their friends almost dying. Cady put her finger up to her lips, her bright grin still on her face. Gretchen stifled her laughter with her hand as Cady led them both back to the front of the library.

After Cady checked out the book for her, Gretchen tried her hardest to stick around. 

“So I haven’t seen you, like, at all this summer, have you just been working here the whole time?”

Cady looked around for any sign of a librarian, then pulled up a chair next to hers. Gretchen hesitantly sat next to her, immediately being overwhelmed by how close she was to Cady. Cady leaned towards her and started rambling quietly.

“Okay, so I have this cousin in Indiana, and she went through this really tough time last year with her school, so Damien, Janis, and I went to visit, and it turns out she’s friends with these older Broadway actors so we visited New York City and Damien fangirled- boyed so hard that he almost passed out…”

Gretchen was enraptured by Cady, by how her face lit up when she talked about her summer vacation.

“And like Emma was freaking out because she thought I wouldn’t like her because she’s gay, which to be fair, her parents kinda kicked her out, but like I’m totally bi so I was just happy I could relate to her about  _ something _ -”

“You’re bi?” Gretchen choked on the air.

Cady shrugged.

“Have I not told you? Yeah, always have been. Are you… cool with that?” 

Cady’s face darkened a little bit, her smile losing its shine. Gretchen’s chest ached.

“Yeah, totally! Karen’s pan and I’m pretty sure Regina’s gay and in denial about it, so yeah love is love!” Gretchen cringed internally. Could she be any more cliche?

“Great, because I heard what Regina did to Janis, and I couldn’t deal with that from you guys, that would hurt  _ a lot _ .” Cady’s smile dropped off her face, but it seemed to boomerang back as she talked about seeing shows on Broadway.

“Yeah, but Miss Allen is in that new Devil Wears Prada show and wow, she is just like Meryl Streep, except she can actually belt. Am I talking too much?”

Gretchen was lost in just listening to Cady, so when she stopped, Gretchen hadn’t heard what she said.

“Huh?”

Cady chortled to herself.

“You haven’t been talking so I just thought I was talking too much.”

Gretchen’s face grew hot.

“Oh no! Not at all, I like hearing you talk. Why’d you come back so soon?”

“Well, I have Mathlete camp, and since Kevin and I are Co-Captains, we have to start coordinating with Miss Norbury on lessons. Also, there’s the Perseid shower happening in a few weeks and I’ve never seen it before, and I wanted to take my parents, but I don’t think I can get them out of work. I don’t even know where we can see it, with all the light pollution here.”

Cady deflated, leaning forward on the desk. Gretchen hated to see her like that, so she got to Googling.

“There’s actually a national forest a few dozen miles south, it’s a ‘designated dark zone’ and it has a good view of the meteor shower. Did you want to go with me?”

Gretchen was on autopilot while researching before she realized she had just asked Cady Heron to go with her on a road trip to look at stars, just the two of them.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I was just-”

“-No, I totally want to go, I just don’t have a car yet.”

Gretchen lit up, instinctively grabbing on to Cady’s arm.

“I do! We could totally go.”

  
  
  


A few weeks later, Gretchen pulled into the driveway of the Heron’s house, nervous out of her mind. This wasn’t a date, it would never be a date. Did Cady like girls? Yes. Did that mean she was interested in Gretchen? Of course not. This was a platonic friendly get together, just the two of them, alone in a designated dark zone, to look at stars- Yeah, it sounded like a date. But it wasn’t, obviously.

Cady ran out of the house, a polaroid camera and a rolled-up poster thing in her arms. She laid her stuff into the backseat before jumping over the car door, right into the passenger seat of Gretchen’s white convertible.

“Ready to go?” Cady beamed. Gretchen could feel her heart leap in her throat.

“Y-yeah. Let’s go. Do you want to pick the music?”

So after a 45-minute car ride full of Gretchen trying to avoid looking at Cady, lest she gets distracted for too long and driven off the road, as well as a curated playlist of alternative and indie music, they arrived at their spot in the park.

It was a large field with not a single light around. The sun had just set, and all the stars started twinkling across the twilit sky. Cady gasped when she saw the sky. The awestruck, nostalgia filled look of wonder that filled Cady’s doe-like blue eyes absolutely destroyed any platonic feelings Gretchen still had. She wanted to make Cady feel like this all the time. She snapped back to it when Cady tried to sit straight on a patch of grass.

“No, wait! I brought a blanket for us to sit down on, grass stains suck to get out.”

After laying out that blue blanket across the grass, Cady slid some film into her polaroid and changed the settings on it, while Gretchen got out a picnic of sparkling cider and some food that her mom had made for “that date” that she thought Gretchen was on. Cady laid out the poster onto the blanket, revealing a detailed star map labeled with the names of the constellations.

“I thought we were here to watch meteors?” Gretchen asked, her hand accidentally-on-purpose brushing Cady’s hand as she traced a constellation on the map.

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen a sky this clear since I moved, I love finding constellations.”

Cady was looking up at the sky, trying to orientate the map to the positions of the stars.

“Which one is your favorite?”

“I’m partial to Cancer, I’m a Cancer. But there’s something about Orion. That was the first constellation I could see as a kid, so I always love seeing it. See?” 

Cady pointed up at a line of three stars.

“That’s his belt, and you can trace the stars around there for the rest of them.”

“That’s really cool!”

Cady’s face reddened a bit, and she looked away from Gretchen.

“You’re a Gemini, right?”

Gretchen nodded.

“Okay so if you look up... _ there _ , there’s Castor, he’s the bigger twin, and Pollux, the smaller twin.”

“That’s greek mythology, right? Is there a myth about the Crab?”

Cady’s blush grew darker, her usual smile darkening to a reticent smirk.

“Eh, no. The Egyptians thought it was a scarab, though. That’s pretty cool, right?”

Gretchen nodded again, leaning back against the blanket as meteors started to streak across the darkened sky. She had been watching the sky one moment, listening to Cady pop open the bottle of cider, and the next, she was being shaken by Cady. She had fallen asleep, and now she was being woken up by a frantic Cady.

“Gretch, get up. It’s raining!”

Sure enough, that woke Gretchen right up, the shorter girl having jumped up to put the top back up on her car before it rained too hard. Within seconds, Cady had gotten the (now soggy) star map and camera in the trunk before the rain began torrenting from the sky. They had jumped into the backseat since it was clear that Gretchen couldn’t drive in such heavy rain. Cady had sent off a text to her mom explaining why they would be late, before gently tossing her phone in the front seat. She leaned back against the door, her strawberry blonde wave now stuck to her face in wet ringlets. She shed her soaked flannel, with a tank top on underneath. Gretchen forgot how to breathe as Cady pulled off the layer, revealing slightly ripped arms that working with animals her entire life had given her. Gretchen shook out her hair from the rain, knowing that it was now completely ruined. Gretchen and Cady sat there in semi-comfortable silence as they took stock of their surroundings.

Gretchen looked at Cady, breaking the silence.

“So it looks like we’re trapped here for a bit. Are you okay?”

Cady bit her lip. 

“Yeah, just a bit soaked. Like, from the rain. Are you alright? You seem a little distracted.”

Gretchen took the deepest breath of her life.

“You weren’t trying to avoid me this summer, right? Like I know it’s an out of nowhere question, and I’ve been acting super weird, and it’s not like I’m trying to avoid  _ you,  _ because I’m not. It’s just weird to be around you ever since the Spring Fling; Like you changed everything about Northshore, and you’re so brave for doing that, and that letterman jacket, and your smile, just everything about that night was so perfect, you were so per- you _ are _ so perfect and I get all these feelings in my chest when you smile or laugh and it makes me so nervous so-”

Gretchen didn’t notice the tears starting to stream down her face. It felt like a weight had been lifted off of her, now that Cady knew how she felt. Cady smiled, its usual brightness toned down to a tender upturn of her lips as she held Gretchen’s face, Cady’s thumbs wiping away the tear tracks forming on Gretchen’s surely blotchy face. Cady sighed, and Gretchen’s heart sank.

“I wish you knew how beautiful and amazing you are, you probably would’ve told me sooner if you did.”

“I know, I was just scared.”

Gretchen let out a watery laugh as she rested her hands on her knees.

“Of what?” Cady asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.

Gretchen looked down at the upholstery of her backseat, picking at the threads.

“That you’d push me away, or worse, settle for me.”

Cady lifted Gretchen’s chin with her thumb, forcing the brunette to look her in the eye.

“Wanting to be with you isn’t settling, Gretch. I like you too.”

Gretchen’s eyes widened. She didn’t prepare for this. All the rehearsed conversations in her bedroom didn’t prepare her for this. She expected a rejection, an “I like you, but not  _ like that _ ”, but now Cady was sitting in front of her, validating,  _ requiting  _ Gretchen’s crush. 

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, um, cool, I-” Gretchen short-circuited, her face growing impossibly warm under Cady’s gaze. Cady laughed, not in a mean way, but in a delighted way. She scooped up Gretchen under her arms and hugged her close. Gretchen didn’t really expect it and froze for a second before she melted into Cady’s arms. Cady traced patterns along Gretchen’s back as she held onto Cady like a vice. They stayed there like that for what seemed like forever before Cady broke the silence.

“Are you alright?” She whispered into Gretchen’s shoulder. Gretchen nodded. Cady leaned up, her mouth inches from Gretchen’s ear.

“Good. Is it cool if I kiss you?”

Gretchen froze again, her heart thundering in her chest. She’d never kissed a girl before, what if she wasn’t good at it, what if Cady-

“Gretch?” Cady’s soft voice cut through the inner monologue as she leaned back from the hug, her hands having found their place on Gretchen’s trembling shoulders.

“Yes. Please?” 

Gretchen didn’t have time to contemplate how horrible she would be at kissing before she felt Cady’s lips press gently against hers. Gretchen’s hands flew into her own lap as she leaned forward, chasing the ghost of Cady’s lips as she pulled back. Cady came back again, her slightly chapped lips lighting this fire in Gretchen’s chest that she hadn’t felt since the Spring Fling. Gretchen pressed harder into the kiss, her head throbbing with her own heartbeat. She wanted to stay like this forever, curled up with Cady, planting pointedly heated kisses. Cady’s hands sunk into Gretchen’s hair, definitely further ruining the painstaking styling that Gretchen put it through, but Gretchen didn’t really care. 

Cady pulled away again, but before Gretchen could protest, Cady had buried her face into her neck, planting small kisses along her neck. This was definitely a great way to pass time before the rain stopped. Cady found that spot under Gretchen’s jaw that made her sigh Cady’s name and hold her closer to herself, resulting in knocking over Cady into her lap. She stuttered out an apology, but Cady just smirked in an awkward, but still super hot way as she straddled Gretchen.

“Is this alright? Should we stop?”

Gretchen reached for the hem of Cady’s tank top as she shook her head.

“Don’t stop, please. If I’m uncomfy, I’ll tell you”

Cady nodded sheepishly.

“Promise?”

Gretchen pulled Cady toward her, into a searing kiss that made Gretchen a little dizzy.

“Promise.”

When Gretchen got back home at 2 AM with a new girlfriend, a few love bites on her neck, and a polaroid of them cuddling in her backseat, it didn’t matter that she was home two hours past her curfew or that her father was giving her the third degree about being careful around boys, she finally felt free in a way she hadn’t since the great Regina Incident of 2018. She felt free around Cady.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this in exchange for bootlegs, so I hope this was worth some solid mean girls boots. Please comment and add kudos, it's the only way I get validated other than my beta reader Selah hyping me up. Follow me on tumblr @nick-carraways-side-hoe


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